French helicopters attacked in Ivory Coast

[April 09, 2011]  ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) -- French helicopters on an evacuation mission were fired upon by forces supporting the country's strongman as they tried to retain power in Ivory Coast's largest city, a military spokesman said Saturday.

No French soldiers were injured in the attack late Friday, but French forces fired back destroying one armored vehicle, Cmdr. Frederic Daguillon said. The mission to evacuate diplomats from an embassy was aborted, he said.

The attack came the same night that France's embassy was hit by two mortars and a rocket fired by forces for Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to cede power or emerge from a bunker at his residence.

U.N. peacekeeping director Alain Le Roy said Friday that Gbagbo and his military have used negotiations with the U.N. this week as a ploy to consolidate power and reinforce his position. He said that an offer by Gbagbo's top three generals to surrender was evidently a "trick" to buy time.

Reports that Gbagbo and his top military men were negotiating a surrender had raised expectations Tuesday that the four-month political standoff in the western African nation was nearing an end.

But Gbagbo later strongly denied that he would give up, and insisted that the presidency was rightfully his.

In power for a decade, Gbagbo refuses to step aside even though the U.N. has ruled that he lost the November presidential election to his political rival Alassane Ouattara.

After four months of diplomacy, Ouattara gave the go-ahead for a military intervention led by fighters from a former rebel group. Forces first attempted to bomb Gbagbo out. When that failed, they tried a ground assault on the bunker. On Friday, internationally recognized president Ouattara imposed a blockade around Gbagbo's presidential residence, and said he'll focus on normalizing life in the corpse-strewn, terrorized city.

Ouattara said the goal is to wait for Gbagbo to run out of food and water. He said his troops will work to secure Abidjan, where people have hidden inside their homes this week amid heavy fighting between troops loyal to Ouattara and those who are with Gbagbo.

Ouattara's forces have stopped short of trying to kill the entrenched leader, a move that could stoke the rage of his supporters. Some 46 percent of Ivorians voted for Gbagbo.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet estimates that Gbagbo has some 1,000 troops, compared to the 2,000-strong force that has been fighting to install Ouattara.

As the military standoff dragged on in Abidjan, there are new concerns about tensions erupting into deadly violence in the country's west. The U.N. said Friday more than 100 bodies have been found in the last 24 hours, and some of the victims had been burned alive.

Military vehicles had to negotiate around bodies lying in the streets. An untold number of fighters and civilians have been killed in Abidjan in the past week.

The International Rescue Committee is warning that chaos is permeating this West African nation once split in two by a 2002-2003 civil war.

[Associated Press; By MARCO CHOWN OVED]

Associated Press writer Anita Snow at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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